The pen tool is one of the most powerful means of creating precise selections. In this series of videos, we are going to work our way from the basics to pen tool mastery, but we need to start with the fundamentals. In fact, in this video, I’m not even going to use the pen tool. Instead, we’ll spend our time understanding how paths work in Photoshop, so that when we do start using the pen tool, we’ll be on familiar ground.
Monday, 17 February 2014
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
30 Second Photoshop. 1: Scaled FX
The first of a new series of Photoshop tips and techniques. Let us know what you think!
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Quick Tip: Reduce Digital Noise with Photoshop
Q: How do I Get Rid of Digital Noise?
A: Have you ever had an image that has bits of color in it that clearly shouldn’t be there? I suppose there are all sorts of reasons they may be there (High ISO, low light…), but all some people care about is that they’re there and they want them to go away! When you see a big splotch of red on a blue shirt, it seems the simple thing to do is to do a Hue / Saturation adjustment, use the dropper to select the red and change the hue and saturation until you have a better match, but the truth is if you do that, the selection won’t be red, it’ll be the same color as the color the splotch is on, or blue. So no go on that. Besides, getting the colors to match, even somewhat, would be a pain, especially if you had a lot of photos taken at the same time, in the same conditions. So, the bad news is you can’t make them just easily go away. You can reduce them, though, and do it pretty fast, too.
Here’s a close up example of a blue shirt with digital noise:
Splotch blast! Now to reduce the splotch: Start by making a duplicate of the background layer. Change the Layer Blend Mode of this duplicate layer to Color.
Now go to Filter > Blur >
Gaussian Blur; start moving the slider over to the right. Don’t pay attention to the preview window, which will begin to blur, rather watch the image itself, which is not blurring, but the colored noise is seemingly fading away.
You’ll know you’re going too far when the image starts to desaturate.
Mask out the areas surrounding the parts where you reduce the noise. There might still be some flaws, but it could be that the remaining flaws are preferable to the splotch!
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Text on a Circular Path with Photoshop
Via our Contact Us page The Photoshop Nuts were asked if we could explain how to put text on a circle.This was covered a while back by Michael Hoffman in his post Working With Type On a Path as a written tutorial but I thought I’d create a video for those that prefer to learn that way too.
In the video, I also explain a technique for creating concentric circles and explain why you’d want to have two windows displaying one image.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Photoshop Workshop
We’re delighted to announce our latest workshop!
Run by Eric Renno, this workshop will look at workflow, and making the most out of Photoshop, to take you images from “Dull to Dynamic”.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, Eric knows Photoshop inside and out and has a few tricks up his sleeve, while his experience as a lecturer (Grade 1 at last observation) means he knows how to bring fun into learning.
He’ll be passing on time saving ideas as well as some actions
and presets that he finds useful, all of which you’ll take home with you.
This is an all day Photoshop event, sprinkled with activities and fun, with a good supply of tea and coffee.
To keep the cost down, we’d ask you to bring a packed lunch, but what a place for a picnic! The workshop’s being help at the beautiful Rutland Water Nature Reserve and come rain or shine the view is stunning!
You’ll know by now that we like to keep the cost as low as possible, and that’s true for this workshop too.
The price of this workshop is just £70.00
We’d advise you to book early to avoid disappointment and to make sure you get to enjoy this fab day out!
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Coloring with Photoshop – Skin
Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : Janine Smith
We’re going to perk things up a bit with a little help from history. First, we need to ask ourselves a couple of questions; what era is our image from and what era’s style do we want to borrow from? Of course, you can color your images any way you like, but personally, I like to borrow styles from the era the image was taken in. For the really old images that may mean striving for a watercolor or pastel look of a hand tinted image and portraits taken in the 40’s may call for the more saturated, glamorous style of that era. I’ll go more into the styles of each era and inspiration at a later date, but for now, since the image I’m working on was taken in the 40’s, you can go online and find an image or images from that era that appeals to you in terms of skin and hair color. You may feel like it’s wrong to borrow an image, but It’s okay to use these images for this purpose – all you’re going to do is sample color palettes, you’re not using the image or reproducing it in any other way. I liked the skin tones in this image of Rita Hayworth so I sampled some of the colors"
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Creating Torn Edges in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
Originally posted at TipSquirrel.com
Photoshop Nut : David Asch
Hello everyone. This month I'm donning my top hat and tuxedo to perform a spectacular card trick for you.
First, I'll tear the card in half and then, without so much as a wave of a magic wand, I'll seamlessly mend it right in front of your very eyes! Seriously, though, if you've ever gone delving into the many filters available in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, you will no doubt have come across the Torn Edges filter.
As the name suggests, it will give you a super torn edge effect on your image. Well, no, actually it won't, not if it's applied directly to the image, that is; all you'll end up creating is a fuzzy monochrome graphic element. In this tutorial, that can be used with both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I'll be showing you how to create a realistic torn edge using the Torn Edge filter but done in a different way.
Rather than applying the filter to the image, it will be applied to a layer mask. As we'll see, working in this way produces very different results; the effect does exactly what it's supposed to. We'll also see how filters can be layered within the Filter Gallery to create composited effects. This is a great way of creating the effect and it can be applied in many different situations. It also gives you much more control over the result than you would when using custom brushes or scanned elements.
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